Toca Life Neighborhood places you in one of four apartments where you may interact with the objects and people in each room. You can interact with, play with and maintain the people in the apartments, or you can mess around such as by putting a large diamond in their washing machine and leaving the machine on until it explodes.

Secrets that double over as puzzles

Toca Life Neighborhood doesn't demand that you take care of the apartment inhabitants because they will not go hungry, smelly or annoyed if you ignore them. You may also search around for secrets, such as by pulling things off of shelves to find hidden objects. Certain secrets, such as hidden maps, will lead you to other secrets that are located within one or more of the apartments. Switching between locations is simply a case of moving left to right, almost like reading a comic, and some items only activate if you put something in a character’s hands and then move another object closer. For example, you need to place a purple orb in a character’s hand and move the Ouija board near the character before the board will glow so that you may click on it to create a smiling sloth ghost.

A simulation game without the need for character maintenance

Toca Life Neighborhood doesn't have the same problem that the Sims game has in that you are not a slave to character maintenance, but like the Sims game, you will become bored when you run out of things to do, especially since there is no end game objective. Nevertheless, as app-based Sim games go, it should make your top ten list for children’s games.